


(Never an) Absolution

by icandrawamoth



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Conflict, Crying, Dark, Friendship, Gen, Guilt, I Made Myself Cry, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Murder, Prison, Sorry Not Sorry, yep the title is from Titanic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 22:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13580142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icandrawamoth/pseuds/icandrawamoth
Summary: Lusankya. Lusankya. Lusankya. Like an ancient superstition: repeat the name three times and a murderer replaces a trusted friend.





	(Never an) Absolution

Tycho is missing memories; he knows that. He doesn't remember what happened right after the event. He can't recall the things he experienced in a dark cell or a laboratory two years ago that led to it. But this memory will be with him for the rest of his life, as fresh as Alderaan's destruction still is:

Wedge, his best friend, his brother, his commander, lying on the ground, a shocked expression still frozen on his face, mouth half open in a question forever unasked. An ugly, charred hole in his unmoving chest.

And when Tycho looks down, the blaster still held unswervingly in his own hand. Then there's shouting and something - later he'd found out it was Corran - is crashing into him from behind, slamming him to the ground, taking he weapon from his grip, and pressing it hard to his temple. Tycho doesn't understand the words he's saying, the shocked questions he's screaming at him, as his mind fuzzes over.

He'd been catatonic for a long time afterwards, only able to repeat over and over the name of the prison that had made him. Lusankya. Lusankya. Lusankya. Like an ancient superstition: repeat the name three times and a murderer replaces a trusted friend.

It had taken time, but the New Republic doctors had finally managed to bring him back to cognizance. He'd found himself strapped to a bed, surrounded by strangers, with no idea what was going on. He struggled, out of pure instinct, until a moment later everything came flooding back and he sank to the bed, barely able to breathe.

They told him, eventually, what had happened. Demanded any knowledge he may have had, any plans he made. They didn't believe, of course, that he had truly thought himself innocent, his mind intact, until the very moment his programming had snapped to life.

When they realized they weren't going to get anything out of him – though he still doesn't think they believe there's nothing to get – they dumped him in this high-security cell. There will be a trial, they told him. He knows it will be a sham. Even if by some miracle they find him innocent by dint of brainwashing, he still murdered a man in cold blood. There's no way he'll be allowed any measure of freedom ever again.

If they don't put him to death, he'll spend the rest of his life here behind bars. Living every day staring at a wall, seeing Wedge's face and knowing in his gut how he betrayed him. Tycho would rather die.

He doesn't even have the words to articulate his horror. He had truly thought he'd been the only one to escape Lusankya unchanged. A miracle, maybe, a random chance, or him just being that strong. It didn't matter. He'd trusted in himself, he'd trusted in how much Wedge trusted him, the way his closet friend stood by him through everything, and look where it got them both.

Days pass, interminably slow and painful. The cell is cold, and he isn't allowed a blanket. The constant guards leer and threaten. He gets too-small meals three times a day.

Tycho doesn't know how much time has gone by. At one point Corran visits, a swirling mass of grief and anger, unable to even take solace in the fact that he was right all along. The guards don't interfere as he screams through the transparisteel barrier, telling Tycho about Rogue Squadron's reactions – Gavin's confused betrayal, Erisi's constant tears, the stunned silence that fills their lodgings.

Through the tirade, Tycho just sits with his head bowed. How can he argue? What is there to say? Corran can't possibly hate him more than he hates himself.

When more shouting and slamming against the barrier still earn no more reaction, the other man's anger seems to drain, leaving him silent and spent. Tycho finally looks up, sees hurt and betrayal in his green eyes. He had wanted to believe, Tycho realizes, and now he's been proved wrong in the worst way possible. Corran turns and stumbles from the room without another word.

Tycho wonders if the funeral has been held yet. It's been days since...what he did. Not that he would be allowed to go. It's perhaps what hurts most about all of this: how can he be allowed to mourn his friend when Wedge is dead because of him? Not only did he pull the trigger, but he allowed himself to be put in a position where it was possible. Tycho made the mistake of insisting he was safe, that he had a right, even, to be where the action was, doing what he could. This was not the action anyone wanted.

That same afternoon, or maybe days later, a guard announces gruffly that he has more visitors, and Tycho levers himself up from his hard mattress and approaches the transparisteel partition. The door opens, and his heart twists when he recognizes the two men coming through it.

Hobbie looks utterly broken. There are dark circles on his pale face as if he hasn't slept since he heard the news. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides. Wes is right beside him, a hand clamped on his shoulder as if he's holding both of them together, and his dark eyes are the first to meet Tycho's.

Tycho has to look away. How can he face them now? Just the three of them. It can only ever be the three of them. As if they would still consider him their friend.

They stop on the other side of the partition, close enough to touch if it wasn't there, and when Hobbie finally looks up, Tycho's breath is shocked out of him by the unexpected vehemence on his face. “How could you do this?” Hobbie asks, voice ragged.

Tycho can only murmur his name, voice raspy with disuse, like some sort of plea. He can't insist on his innocence, of course he can't, but part of him had hoped they would understand. He never would have chosen to do this.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers, and for the first time, his eyes begin to fill.

“Sorry?” Hobbie repeats, louder. “You're _sorry_? That's not going to bring Wedge back, Tycho!”

“Don't,” Wes pleads, and he sounds like he's breaking apart. “You know he didn't-” He blinks rapidly and swallows with difficulty. “You didn't mean it, Tycho. Isard...she did this to you. She made you do it.”

Tycho nods. There are tears running down his face now. Is that supposed to make him feel better? Should he be vindicated, feel less guilt, because one person acknowledges why this really happened?

“He made a choice,” Hobbie says, still looking at Tycho. His voice shakes, but he doesn't back down. “You said you were okay. You let Wedge vouch for you, and you positioned yourself where you could – could do _this_.” His expression twists painfully, and he has to look away. “I can't be here. I just - I can't.” Then he's lurching for the exit.

Tycho is too overcome to call after him, but though Wes does, there's no response. A guard opens the door, and Hobbie is gone.

Wes turns back to Tycho, everything about the simple movement heavy. “He understands, on some level,” he says, and there's a note of pleading in his voice.

“Nothing he said was wrong.” _He only voiced what I already knew._ It shouldn't have hurt any more to hear his friend speak the words aloud, but it did. Tycho wipes tears from his eyes, tries to regain his composure.

Wes watches him, and for long moments Tycho can't read the expression on his face. Sympathy? Compassion? Pity? He doesn't think he wants any of that.

The silence becomes unbearable. “The funeral?” Tycho asks to break it.

“This morning,” Wes answers. “There was all this pomp and circumstance, everyone crowing about his bravery and accolades and how much of a hero he was.” Wes's eyes seem to lighten half a shade, if only for a second. “He would have hated it.”

“I wish I could have been there.” The words are pointless, but Tycho says them anyway.

“I petitioned for them to at least let you have a holofeed, but no one would listen.”

Tycho nods. “I appreciate that.” That's it then. He's never going to see Wedge again. No flag-draped coffin with the Rogue Squadron crest, no gravestone. That awful image will be the last vision of his best friend that he carries to his grave.

“Tycho...”

Tycho looks up at him, sees that torn expression on Wes's face, the shiny wetness still in his brown eyes, and hates that he put it there. “I'm sorry,” he finds himself saying again.

Wes just shakes his head, resting a hand against the transparisteel as he leans closer. “I can't begin to imagine what this is like for you,” he says, and he's looking at Tycho like he might actually want to. “But I know it has to be killing you. I bet no one has told _you_ they're sorry, for what you're going through.”

“Wes, I-”

“Deserve to hear this,” Wes insists. “You know it would be Wedge standing here saying it if he could.”

Tycho has to turn away at that, pressing his back to the barrier, feeling it cold against his skin through the thin prison uniform. “It doesn't matter what he would say. He's gone.”

“Then listen because I'm saying it,” Wes says more firmly. “Isard screwed with your head, she screwed with all of us, and she made this happen. You can't let her win by letting yourself think it's your fault. It's _not_.”

“How can you be like this?” Tycho turns back to him, desperate. “I-” He chokes on the words but he's about to say but forces them out anyway. “I killed one of your best friends, Wes. I murdered him in cold blood. How could you just...forgive me?”

“I know you, Tycho.” Wes's gaze is steady. “I know nothing could willfully make you hurt any of us, and I know if you had even an _inkling_ that being where you were would do more harm than good, you wouldn't have been there. I'm here for you, Tycho. I'm on your side.”

Tycho swallows a sob, and his hand is trembling as he raises it to press where his friend's still rests against the transparisteel. “Thank you,” he whispers.

“We're going to fight this,” Wes promises. “We're not just going to let them put you to death or lock you up forever without a fight. You have me. Leia. Luke. Hobbie and your squadron – some of them will come around, I know it. You're not alone in this.”

Tycho can only nod, throat aching with unshed tears. He'd never thought- he'd never allowed himself to _hope_ -

“Tycho, look at me.” He does. “You're still a Rogue, and Rogues look out for each other.”

“Yeah.” Tycho swallows hard, does his best to pull himself together. “Speaking of my squadron – former squadron – what's happening with them?” He can only imagine that the mission to Coruscant – the thing Wedge was telling him about when this nightmare started – has been scrapped for now, but he wonders about their future. Will the unit be disbanded now that it's leaderless, or will someone be called in to take over? Or-

Wes shakes his head, face creasing in frustration. “You know I can't tell you that.”

“Of course not.” Tycho sighs and lets his head drop against the coolness of the transparisteel. Of course that would have been top of the list of things Wes couldn't discuss with him, for security reasons. Everyone has to assume he's still compromised. It's for the best, as badly as he wants to know.

“They'll do all right, regardless,” Wes tells him earnestly. “They're good men and women; they're strong.”

“They are,” Tycho agrees. If nothing else, they have Corran to fight for them, and Tycho trusts him with that mission regardless of what lies between the two of them.

“Time's up,” the guard in the room says suddenly as he steps forward, and Tycho sees his hands tighten fractionally on his Stokhli spray stick. “Lieutenant Janson, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

Wes's jaw tightens, but Tycho shakes his head. Why makes things harder for all of them?

“I'll come back,” Wes promises.

“I'll look forward to it.” Tycho manages to drag up a tiny smile for him. He has nothing else to look forward too.

Wes nods and finally steps away like it takes a great effort.

“-Wes.” When he turns back, Tycho tells him, “Don't be hard on Hobbie on my account.”

Wes shakes his head. “You always were too selfless for your own damn good.”

Then he's gone, and Tycho is alone again, only the scowling guards for company. He lets out a breath and crosses back to his cot, sits heavily. The quiet, the loneliness, memories and guilt, descend on him again. All he can do is wait.


End file.
